Fight the Treatment Industrial Complex

AFSC-Arizona staff are amazing advocates for prisoners - and as such, are true blessings to our communities. Spend time on their site - lots of resources.

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NATIVE RESISTANCE AND THE CARCERAL STATE

Retiring Arizona Prison Watch...

This site was originally started in July 2009 as an independent endeavor to monitor conditions in Arizona's criminal justice system, as well as offer some critical analysis of the prison industrial complex from a prison abolitionist/anarchist's perspective. It was begun in the aftermath of the death of Marcia Powell, a 48 year old AZ state prisoner who was left in an outdoor cage in the desert sun for over four hours while on a 10-minute suicide watch. That was at ASPC-Perryville, in Goodyear, AZ, in May 2009.

Marcia, a seriously mentally ill woman with a meth habit sentenced to the minimum mandatory 27 months in prison for prostitution was already deemed by society as disposable. She was therefore easily ignored by numerous prison officers as she pleaded for water and relief from the sun for four hours. She was ultimately found collapsed in her own feces, with second degree burns on her body, her organs failing, and her body exceeding the 108 degrees the thermometer would record. 16 officers and staff were disciplined for her death, but no one was ever prosecuted for her homicide. Her story is here.

Marcia's death and this blog compelled me to work for the next 5 1/2 years to document and challenge the prison industrial complex in AZ, most specifically as manifested in the Arizona Department of Corrections. I corresponded with over 1,000 prisoners in that time, as well as many of their loved ones, offering all what resources I could find for fighting the AZ DOC themselves - most regarding their health or matters of personal safety.

I also began to work with the survivors of prison violence, as I often heard from the loved ones of the dead, and learned their stories. During that time I memorialized the Ghosts of Jan Brewer - state prisoners under her regime who were lost to neglect, suicide or violence - across the city's sidewalks in large chalk murals. Some of that art is here.

In November 2014 I left Phoenix abruptly to care for my family. By early 2015 I was no longer keeping up this blog site, save occasional posts about a young prisoner in solitary confinement in Arpaio's jail, Jessie B.

I'm deeply grateful to the prisoners who educated, confided in, and encouraged me throughout the years I did this work. My life has been made all the more rich and meaningful by their engagement.

I've linked to some posts about advocating for state prisoner health and safety to the right, as well as other resources for families and friends. If you are in need of additional assistance fighting the prison industrial complex in Arizona - or if you care to offer some aid to the cause - please contact the Phoenix Anarchist Black Cross at PO Box 7241 / Tempe, AZ 85281. collective@phoenixabc.org

Thursday, June 5, 2014

ASPC-Eyman Suicide in Custody: Mark Moore, 57.

Sad to report there's been another suicide in the AZ DOC's supermax prison, ASPC-Eyman; that prison is a death trap for people prone to self-destruction. This one isn't the usual prisoner suicide, though - which has been male, young and facing life, on death row, or just about to be free, for the most part these past 5 years. This fellow had been at the AZ DOC since 1986, had a decent job, was only medium custody (which meant he had more privileges and programming opportunities then most guys I hear from have), and he apparently hadn't had any disciplinary write-ups in over a year. Yeah, he was in for life, but he'd made some kind of life in there and adapted to it...look at his work record.

Latest Supermax suicide victim,

Mark Moore, 57

The only clue to something changing I can see on his AIMS, which is public info on the DOC website, is that he had just been re-classed a week ago, likely to a lower custody level. Based on letters I've gotten from other prisoners who were old-timers being re-classed, its possible he was told he'd be moved to another General Population yard, despite his apprehensions about being there given his history as a sex offender. But, given his history as a sex offender, I doubt the DOC would put him back in GP. I think they would be prohibited from it, in fact....except that that's not what he was doing time for, this time around. So they may well have told him he was not getting protective custody and would have to make it in GP. That probably kills more guys than any other single thing at the AZ DOC.

Given the possibility that he was already in Protective Custody and remaining there, though, I wondered what else might have been going on to cause him to take his life. He didn't appear to be severely mentally ill, based on his steady employment history as a barber (they don't like giving the SMI guys scissors). Maybe he got a terminal diagnosis he couldn't deal with, or was sexually assaulted and the DOC didn't appropriately counsel him (all too often the case, the victim is put in the hole while the perpetrator remains free on the yard. The victim is then repeatedly humiliated by officers, especially those victims who are known to be gay, and moved from GP yard to GP Yard while begging to be placed in protective custody....). Both Jesse Cabonias and Duron Cunningham committed suicide in the wake of no or poor institutional response to their sexual victimization - those are just the two I know about, anyway.The standard psychiatric evaluations offered to Eyman prisoners by Corizon leave a lot to be desired, as you can see here. Basically, the medium security folks are rounded up, chained to each other, and transported to a maximum security yard where they are then herded into a room together to have their telephonic appointment with the shrink. Reports from prisoners are that these meetings have been held while they were still chained to other prisoners - the DOC flatly denies this. In any case, the prisoners only get a few minutes of doctor time and the experience they have to endure for the sake of it has discouraged many from seeking psychiatric care or continuing with treatment.In order to maximize profits - which is what the legislature wanted DOC to hire them to do, to make a profit at taxpayer and prisoner expense - Corizon has slashed staff time available to ill prisoners, and discontinued many psychiatric medications switching prisoners who were functioning well on one drug to older, less effective meds with more severe side effect profiles, which many prisoners understandably no longer wish to take. These are the drugs that pharmaceutical companies typically sell extremely cheap in developing countries for institutionalized people, because hardly anyone in the US uses them anymore due to the side effect profiles - some - even at low doses, can cause high rates of Tardive Dyskinesia, a serious neurological syndrome. Here, in fact, is another letter of concern from Donna Hamm to the DOC Director, Chuck Ryan, about psychiatric and health care at Eyman under Corizon.Similarly, to save money, Corizon discontinued a good many prisoners, if not all, from their pain management medications when they took over the medical care contract. Even many of those who managed to get their doctor to start them on another medication found they were ineffective for the diabetic neuropathy, or back pain, or bone cancer they were dealing with, and felt compelled to resort to heroin for pain management instead - far easier to get on a prison yard these days than a single tablet of Tylenol 3. Some, facing unbearable pain, day in and day out, with no compassion or relief from medical providers who would just as soon let them die in agony, might even choose to end their lives themselves, the one thing they have ultimate control over when all else is controlled by the state.

Not all DOC medical staff are heartless or gutless, though - at least Teresa Short walked away and came forward about the ethical dilemmas she experienced at Corizon over the past year, working in the intensive care unit at Tucson prison. And some legislators wonder why there's a class action suit complaining about the "free" medical care prisoners are so lucky to get - they think the ACLU has nothing better to do. The legislature's willingness to turn a blind eye is a large part of the problem at the AZ DOCAnyway, my condolences go out to anyone who cared about this man - as well as to the survivors of his murder victim, for whom his suicide will bring up a lot of feelings, I would imagine. If anyone has any hard info about how and why he killed himself, I'm Peggy Plews - contact me at 480-580-6807 / arizonaprisonwatch@gmail.com or PO box 20494 PHX 85036.